Posts Tagged ‘flypast’

His spokesman said he wanted to make sure that 95-year-old Mr Neil, an ex-wing commander and Battle of Britain Hurricane and Spitfire pilot, would still be able to take part.

And he wanted to ensure that a former para and an RAF corporal who won places on a Spitfire scholarship training programme were also still able to take part in the display.

Nathan Forster, a former private in the Parachute Regiment, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, suffered severe damage to his left leg in an IED blast while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2011. And Corporal Alan Robinson, an RAF aircraft technician, from Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, lost a leg in a motorbike accident.

Earlier, Harry – sporting a rugged beard – was pictured with a full beard as he set off on foot to inspect the aircraft lined up by the grass runway – and was admonished within minutes.

But, as his group began to cross the runway, a security vehicle came speeding up and stopped the Prince and his group in their tracks.

He could be seen being told to stand back and not cross the runway and a few minutes later a small aircraft came in to land.

Harry was then cleared to cross and continue his inspection as rain poured down on the airfield.

The Prince was due to fly in the Spitfire PV202 piloted by John Romain, managing director of the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford, Cambridgeshire.

But he will no longer be flying in the display as one of the four two-seater Spitfires has suffered mechanical problems.

During the summer and autumn of 1940, 544 personnel from Fighter Command died as the RAF fought in the skies above southern England to force back the threat of any invasion by Hitler.

The 75th anniversary is likely to be the last major anniversary at which the surviving members of the pivotal conflict – who are now all well into their 90s – will be fit to take part.

Mr Neil, 95, an ex-wing commander and Battle of Britain Hurricane and Spitfire pilot, will lead the formation from the rear of a two-seater Spitfire – the symbol of Britain’s fight against Nazi forces.

The event has been organised by the Boultbee Flight Academy, based in Chichester, and two of the aircraft – a Spitfire and a Hurricane – fought in the famous battle.

The Prince had ditched the razor during his summer working on conservation projects in Africa. And he kept his new look on his return to the UK, showing off a rugged ginger beard on Tuesday morning.

Yet even for those watching from the ground, the flypast made quite some spectacle. Around 40 Spitfires, Hurricanes and a Bristol Blenheim bomber soared up from the aerodrome before dispersing and flying in formation across wartime airfields dotted all over the south of the country.

The fighter planes flew in groups of four, the unmistakeable snub-nosed Spitfires and sleek Hurricanes banking over Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and the waters of the Solent.

For the few dozen surviving pilots of the 3,000 heroes of the Battle of Britain, the battle for national survival which raged above England in the summer and autumn of 1940, there was an acceptance that yesterday’s scenes will be the last major anniversary they will be able to take part in.

Even the most stoic among them are getting on, and Wing Commander Neil, who during the dogfights 75 years ago brought down 14 enemy planes, admitted that when he approached the Spitfire cockpit he did have some reservations about actually getting in.

“I’m not a young man anymore and not very good at bending in the middle, so I didn’t think I was going to do it,” he said. “But after a couple of minutes or so inside it felt absolutely normal, if a bit lumpy.

“I kept a careful eye on the instruments and made sure they didn’t get out of control. I also kept looking among the clouds for any Germans.”

Wing Commander Neil, who flew a Hurricane during the Battle of Britain but has also flown 22 different marks of Spitfire, claims during wartime the pilots rarely experienced any issues with their planes. “Of course back then we were dealing with brand new engines,” he said.

As for the Prince’s willingness to offer up his seat, he says he deserves a medal.

“He is a lovely boy. I don’t think he ever expected me to come back alive but when we landed he gave me my stick back and congratulated me. I said, ‘there is nothing to congratulate me about’.”

At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, just 640 RAF Fighter Command planes were pitched into battle against 2,600 of their Luftwaffe counterparts. September 15 is seen as the pivotal day of the war within a war, when the Germans launched their largest and most concentrated assault on London, and British Spitfires and Hurricanes repelled waves of attacks.

On the day itself 75 years ago, the planes zipped through blue skies, but yesterday’s looming cloud banks led to the flypast being delayed for two hours.

The poor weather, and the grounded Spitfire, were not the only hitches. Prior to the display, Prince Harry was also stopped by a security vehicle as he attempted to cross the runway because of an incoming small aircraft. Security staff at the airfield raced up to the Prince and asked him and his group to stop. He duly moved aside and waited for the plane, which landed a couple of minutes later.

The Prince, however, grinned his way through such minor tribulations, meeting numerous veterans who had attended. A Royal spokesman yesterday described him as being “incredibly honoured” to be part of the event, not least because it coincided with his birthday.

The scholarship was established by the Boultbee Flight Academy and is supported by the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry’s Endeavour Fund – which donates money and offers practical help to sporting and adventure challenges for wounded ex-service personnel.

Nathan Forster, a former private in the Parachute Regiment, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, who suffered severe damage to his left leg in an IED blast while on patrol in Helmand Province in 2011, won a place on the scheme alongside Corporal Alan Robinson, an RAF aircraft technician from Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, who lost a leg in a motorbike accident that same year.

The training programme the pair followed was similar to that of their WWII predecessors, undertaking their first flights in a Tiger Moth and Harvard, before finally getting into the cockpit of a Spitfire itself

The Spitfire PV202 that Forster took Prince Harry’s place in was piloted by John Romain, managing director of the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. It has carried out 20 operational sorties with 10 pilots during the Second World War.

Back in April, Forster said that flying a Spitfire through the programme would be the culmination of a dream come true.

A Battle of Britain commemoration flypast by 20 Spitfires over London has been cancelled after the Shoreham air disaster made the cost of insuring the event unaffordable.

The organisers of the flypast, which they had hoped would happen on September 20, were told they would need third party insurance cover of £250 million, which would have required a premium of around £50,000.

It raises the prospect that air shows scheduled for next year may find the cost of insurance prohibitive as a result of the Hawker Hunter crash at Shoreham, in which 11 people died.

Paul Beaver, who was organising the event, said: “The intention was that 20 privately-owned Spitfires would fly over London to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. We had started the planning in March, and had applied to the Civil Aviation Authority and even the Prime Minister to get the go-ahead.

“The route we were going to take would have made sure there was always somewhere for an aircraft to land if it got into difficulties, and usually the individual owners’ aircraft insurance, which provides £5 million of third party cover per aircraft, would have been enough.

“But after Shoreham we took soundings from an insurance expert who advises the air shows, and he said the feedback he was getting from underwriters was that we would need to take out £250 million of insurance cover, which made the whole thing untenable.

“I really hope the underwriters take a pragmatic view when the air show season starts next year, because if they don’t it will make life very difficult.”

An unrelated flypast of massed fighter planes will still go ahead on September 15 over the south of England which will be attended by Prince Harry.

The ‘Hardest Day’ recalls when, on 18 August 1940, Biggin Hill in Bromley came under attack from the Luftwaffe, and post-war studies have shown this was the hardest-fought day in the history of the air war over Britain.